


When the night has come and the land is dark

by gekidasa



Category: Kamen Rider Ryuki
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gekidasa/pseuds/gekidasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goro lost track sometimes of how long he'd been with Kitaoka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the night has come and the land is dark

Goro lost track sometimes of how long he'd been with Kitaoka. It’d been a long time, longer than he'd ever been with any woman, certainly.

He'd been with Kitaoka ever since the attorney had agreed to represent him in court. At first it had been a way to settle his debt. Kitaoka didn’t make it a habit to take on clients that couldn’t pay his fees, but he’d been in sore need of a personal assistant, particularly one that could double as a body guard, and some of Goro’s more unorthodox talents had been recommendation enough. His skill in the kitchen had been an added bonus that Kitaoka hadn’t expected but had more welcomed.

He'd been there almost two years when Kitaoka got unexpectedly ill, and later when he got his diagnosis, and had seen him wave it off dismissively.

"It's nothing that serious," the attorney had said. "Probably just a bad case of the flu."

He'd been there as Kitaoka searched for a second opinion, and then a third, and a fourth, a fifth. He'd seen Kitaoka finally have to face the inescapable, implacable truth. He'd seen him sigh and accept it, elegant and calm even in defeat.

He'd been with him as Kitaoka searched for alternatives, for a cure, from medical trials to holistic medicine, and he was with him when Kitaoka finally ran out of options and venues to explore.

He'd been there, just close enough, to hear him whisper sardonically "I guess that's it then," and then in his normal speaking voice, perfectly composed "Make sure to pick out a nice Bordeaux for dinner tonight, Goro. I’m in the mood for something delicious."

Weeks later he'd been in the study with Kitaoka the day Kanzaki Shiro came to him, unannounced, with his impossible tale and unbelievable promise. Kitaoka had laughed, and then asked Kanzaki Shiro to leave, and he did, but he'd left the Deck behind.

For as long as Goro had known him, Kitaoka Shuichi had been a realist. He believed in what was tangible, in what could be seen and measured. He didn't believe in fairy tales or in magical cures. He certainly didn't believe in miracles, or in battles that would grant the victor the power to make a wish come true.

But the next morning Goro came into the studio to find Kitaoka sitting at his desk with a faraway look in his eyes, running his long fingers over the Rider Deck.

"I saw them, Goro. They're real."

"Who's real, _sensei_?"

"The monsters in the mirror. I picked up the deck, and I heard a noise, like glass, and then I looked and they were there. Waiting."

Kitaoka glanced towards the mirror, and Goro’s gaze followed his. He didn’t see anything there.

"Who's to say what's impossible? Isn't it just a word for the things we don't have the power to obtain? But what if we can take that power..."

“ _Sensei..._ ”

Kitaoka smiled, his eyes never leaving the mirror and whatever he saw beyond.

"I'm going to die any anyway. Does it really matter if it's cancer that kills me, or a monster from inside a mirror? I have nothing to lose, and... an eternity to gain."

And so Goro was there as well, when Kitaoka Shuichi chose to make a contract with a monster and join Kanzaki’s game. He was there to see him disappear into a mirror, and he was there to see him return as Kamen Rider Zolda.

He knew he’d be there, by Kitaoka’s side, until it was all over.

  


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**Author's Note:**

> I was going to have Goro call Kitaoka "sir", because I would rather not put Japanese in for no reason, but then decided it just didn't feel right and switched to "sensei".


End file.
